Educational Psychology Course Research Articles

The Effect of Moral Orientation Variables in Counseling College Students

The purpose of this study was to test empirically the hypotheses found in the literature regarding the impact of moral orientation on the counseling process. The correlation between moral orientation variables (match, mismatch, care, and justice) and counselor effectiveness ratings on the CRF-S, SEQ, and RSRS were examined. A naturalistic study was conducted using video footage from real counseling training sessions. Data were collected through transcriptions of video recordings and questionnaires given to clients after four counseling sessions. The participants in the study included master’s level counselors in training paired with undergraduate volunteer clients from courses in educational psychology, sociology, and psychology at a large state university. A canonical correlation analysis revealed no significant correlation between moral orientation variables and counselor effectiveness ratings. Implications drawn from the results of the study include (a) a need to understand both moral voices of care and justice in training; (b) a need to determine appropriate times to validate as well as challenge the voice used by clients in counseling; and (c) a need to investigate further the role of moral development empirically in order to portray correctly the information in the research literature.

Creative Justice? The Relationship between Prospective Teachers' Prior Schooling Experiences and Perceived Importance of Promoting Student Creativity

AbstractProspective teachers (N = 117) enrolled in an introductory educational psychology course completed questions measuring their perceptions of past schooling experiences, current views regarding the importance of promoting student creativity, and their perceived ability to promote creativity. Statistically significant differences were found between the low importance and high importance groups. Prospective teachers who viewed promoting creativity of students as highly important were significantly less likely to indicate that they enjoyed school. In addition, prospective teachers in the high importance group indicated significantly lower levels of experiencing belongingness (relatedness) and significantly lower self‐judgments of their past ability to be successful in school (competence). Judgments regarding the choices afforded in school (autonomy) were mixed, but favored prospective teachers who placed less importance on promoting student creativity. Finally, prospective teachers who viewed promoting student creativity as highly important were significantly more likely to indicate that they had the ability to promote student creativity. A creative‐justice hypothesis was derived from these results. This hypothesis posits that individuals committed to promoting creativity are driven by their own past experiences with creativity diminishing environments. These individuals then seek out opportunities to transform the experiences of new inhabitants in similar environments.

Perceptions of developmental, social, and emotional issues in giftedness: Are they realistic?

We questioned 285 undergraduate students enrolled in human development and educational psychology courses about their perceptions of issues related to giftedness. Participants responded to statements that reflect potential myths or misconceptions related to development, family relations, emotional functioning, and social functioning among individuals who are gifted. Many of the group's perceptions followed no dominant trend and varied little from published evidence. The exceptional issues involved perceptions of homogeneity among children who are gifted, synchronous development, emotional and social functioning in children who are gifted, and emotional functioning of their non‐gifted siblings. In the latter three cases, participants overestimated the probability of distress. We discuss implications for programmatic needs, and the need to educate the public regarding disparate and stigmatizing perceptions.

Constructivist teaching and teacher‐centred teaching: a comparison of students’ learning in a university course

A case study of an undergraduate Educational Psychology course that incorporated both constructivist and teacher‐centred teaching was conducted. The learning processes and higher‐level learning outcomes were examined through participant observation, interviews with students and analyses of student assignments. The lessons were audio recorded and transcribed, and a total of 68 interviews, each about 1.5 hours long, were conducted. In general, the constructivist teaching facilitated students’ creation of their own knowledge, as they were allowed to think more over the problems together and generate original ideas. Students’ performances in recalling, critiquing and generating with the knowledge gained in the constructivist teaching context were also better than those in the teacher‐centred context. This could be explained by the deeper processing of the material, the activation of students’ prior knowledge and the similarity between the situations of knowledge construction and knowledge application. The strengths and limitations of constructivist teaching are also discussed.

Online Study Groups: Reciprocal Peer Questioning versus Mnemonic Devices

One hundred sixty students in an educational psychology course used WebCT Discussions to satisfy one of two study group conditions, reciprocal peer questioning or mnemonic devices. Students made postings according to their assigned study strategy in order to facilitate the learning of their group. At the end of the academic term, student permission was obtained to use three types of data for purposes of the investigation: 1) course grades; 2) WebCT records; and 3) rating scale responses that assessed personal evaluation of the virtual study groups. There were no differences between the two study conditions in terms of academic achievement. However, students in the reciprocal peer questioning condition made more postings and read more articles than students in the mnemonics group. Correspondingly, students in the reciprocal peer questioning group reported higher levels of satisfaction with the virtual study experience.

Learn by doing

For my entire career, I have been involved in devising and implementing methods of teaching doctors about radiology. It was not my end of things to decide on content. That was left to you real teachers and to the high court of pedagogy, the American Board of Radiology. In my checkered academic career, I avoided all courses in educational psychology and techniques. But then, I had no idea what I would be doing for a living and so, when I started doing it, I came to realize that I was reinventing wheels that ran smoothly for others.

Analysis of Lecture Self-evaluation by Students Accompanied with Instructional Improvement : A Case Study on an Educational Psychology Course

Analysis of Lecture Self-evaluation by Students Accompanied with Instructional Improvement : A Case Study on an Educational Psychology Course

Distance education in Malawi

Any discussion of technology as a “tool-only” definition is incomplete. Instructional technology also refers to a systematic means of solving problems (Reiser, 1987). In the case of Malawi and so many other low-income societies where tools are difficult to purchase and maintain, one resource that is not in short supply is the number of able and willing people who could themselves provide solutions to the country's many challenges. The important role of the instructional designer should not be ignored. Mzuzu University has the benefit of having five trained instructional technologists among its faculty. Increasing the number of designers with experience in distance teaching and learning would benefit Malawi. The insight provided by people who have taken instructional design, educational psychology, and related courses, would undoubtedly open minds to new possibilities. Not only could they guide instructional development for Web-based learning, they could design and offer training on new technologies as they become available. Although consultants from outside Malawi can offer excellent advice based on their education and experience, such input is necessarily limited by the lack of a true understanding of contextual issues. The advantage indigenous designers have, of course, is first-hand knowledge of their own context, which plays a very important role in shaping instructional decisions (Arias & Clark, 2004; Perkins, 2003; Tessmer & Richey, 1997). Indigenous instructional designers should be called on first to offer guidance as leaders in ministries and at international funding agencies seeking reasonable solutions to the challenges to access and growth that lie before them.

Case Study Instruction In Educational Psychology Courses

The case study method of instruction affords students the opportunity to see the real-world applications of what they are learning and to actively engage in problem-solving. The purpose of this study is to examine current research on the use of case- based instruction and consider how this method might be of benefit to students enrolled in educational psychology courses in either the traditional classroom or web-assisted learning environment.

Establishment of new universities and the growth of psychology in postwar Japan1

Abstract: The quantitative increase in psychologists in postwar Japan was investigated by focusing on the distribution of psychology faculties in universities and graduate schools. The status of psychology in the new teacher‐training system was acknowledged as the institutional basis for this increase. The growth in the number of universities, graduate schools, faculties, and association memberships related to psychology was analyzed. The results indicated that the initial basis for the increase was the new university curriculum of teacher education, which stipulated that educational psychology and related subjects should be compulsory. As a result, new jobs for psychologists were created in most universities. The establishment of graduate schools was another factor that contributed to the increase in psychologists because it provided psychology researchers for newly established universities. In particular, since the 1990s, graduate schools offering courses in clinical psychology and educational psychology have contributed to the increase in psychologists. The meaning of this increase in psychology in Japanese universities during the current period of university reform is discussed.

Online discussion and college student learning: toward a model of influence

As technology revolutionizes instruction, conceptual models of influence are necessary to guide implementation and evaluation of specific applications such as online peer discussion. Students in an educational psychology course analyzed five case studies that applied and integrated course content. Some students (n= 42) used WebCT Discussionsto submit their case studies; other students (n= 82) submitted written case-study analyses to their instructor. Unexpected WebCT server difficulties allowed for analysis of the impact of technology malfunction on student learning. At the beginning of the course, the groups did not differ from each other. Subsequent differences between the groups suggested benefits of online discussion until the point at which the technology malfunctioned. A model of the influence of online peer discussion is generated from the data and includes proposed mechanisms by which student learning is both positively and negatively affected by the utilization of instructional technology.

Correlation between the Educational Objectives and Psychology Course Goals for High School Psychology Course in Saudi Arabia

Correlation between the Educational Objectives and Psychology Course Goals for High School Psychology Course in Saudi Arabia

Are university students' component reading skills related to their text comprehension and academic achievement?

Among developing and poor readers, text comprehension is strongly related to word decoding accuracy and reading fluency. However, among relatively skilled adult readers, these aspects of reading skill are largely independent of one another. The reading of 193 second- and third-year students enrolled in an educational psychology course at a public research university was described well by three orthogonal principal components: Word Decoding Accuracy, Reading Speed, and Text Comprehension Accuracy. Furthermore, component reading skills were not associated with individual differences in the extent to which students in this sample had succeeded in postsecondary education. Decoding Accuracy was most related to spelling accuracy and phonemic awareness . Only Text Comprehension Accuracy was associated even minimally with grade-point average. A subgroup of 15 students who reported various reading problems did not have a low mean grade-point average.

Teaching in mainstream and special schools: are the stresses similar or different?

Research evidence, and the direct experience of many practitioners, suggest that teaching is a stressful profession. However, a number of factors, including, for example, the age group taught, the number of pupils in the class, the hours worked and the type of school, may mediate the types and degree of stress experienced. In this article, Michelle Williams, who carried out this study as part of her degree in psychology at the University of East London and who is not a teacher, and Professor Irvine Gersch, course director of the MSc course in educational psychology at the University of East London, describe work undertaken to compare whether teaching in a mainstream or special school is perceived as more stressful and whether there are different stresses in both types of school.The authors designed a questionnaire to measure teacher stress and collected data from 41 teachers in three mainstream and two special schools. Their results reveal no significant difference in the overall level of stress experienced between mainstream and special school teachers, but five factors do emerge indicating that different types of stress are experienced in the different school settings studied.

Learning to talk the educational psychology talk through a problem-based course

A sociocultural view of learning proposes that learning involves becoming enculturated into a community of practice. A step along the way is learning to use the specialized language of such a community, as language is a crucial tool that regulates participation, mediates cognition and plays a central role in the development of thought. Problem-based learning (PBL), with its emphasis on collaborative discourse, provides opportunities for students to develop the conceptual language of a discipline, which in turn affects cognition. In a problem-based undergraduate Educational Psychology course, many psychological theories, concepts and principles are introduced to pre-service teachers. During the course, as students learn through problem solving, they engage with new knowledge. This evolving knowledge requires new discourse structures that will allow students to express their new ideas and that will ultimately structure students' ways of knowing. The content of group and individual artifacts is analyzed to examine how PBL influences students' language and knowledge development over the course of the semester in an Educational Psychology class (n = 34). The goal of this paper is to present these analyses and to discuss how the change affects students' language and knowledge.

Cooperative Learning Groups at the College Level: Differential Effects on High, Average, and Low Exam Performers

A repeated-measures mixed-design was used in examining the effects of cooperative learning study teams on exam performance for 378 undergraduate students enrolled in one of 10 large sections of an introductory educational psychology course over a two-semester period. Students were assigned to 5-member cooperative groups based on previous exam achievement (low, average, high). Bonuses (20% of exam score) were offered to groups who improved their mean exam performance to a pre-established criterion in the cooperative-group phase. Results yielded an overall effect size of 0.42 for cooperative study versus individual study. Students who had obtained low and average scores on the preceding exam improved significantly during cooperative study, but the previously high achievers decreased somewhat.

Making social justice within educational psychology relevant to preservice teachers

We believe that teacher credential programs and, specifically, educational psychology courses should encourage future teachers to act in ways that promote social justice within their school communities as well as the community at large. In this article, we share how we respond to students' concerns, how we infuse a social justice orientation in our educational psychology courses, and how we struggle to attain a social constructivist perspective in a standards-driven context where we find our community of learners.

I Ain'T Thinkin' 'Bout No…: The Development of Two Parallel Diversity-Related Case Studies for Higher Education

Educators are becoming increasingly sensitive to accommodating the needs of students from diverse backgrounds in their classes while ensuring that learning occurs. Group work often is the vehicle chosen to stimulate participation and positively affect learning. In this paper, we describe the development of parallel case studies related to diversity issues and motivational strategies for use in educational psychology and introductory human resource management courses, the reactions engendered, and issues related to classroom discussion groups. Overall, the cases were effective in stimulating higher-level thinking about real world, diversity-related issues.

Psychometric properties of Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal for a sample of education majors.

Psychometric properties of the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal, Form A, were computed for 135 education majors. Analyses of reliability (internal consistency and split-half) and validity (concurrent and predictive) showed that the scale was reliable and valid measuring critical thinking abilities for students majoring in education. The best predictors of the Educational Psychology course grades were the Inference and Deduction subscale scores.

A Systems Analysis Approach to Learning Theory in Pre-service Teacher Education: Using Technology to Facilitate Representation of Complex Relationships in Educational Theory and Practice

Teacher education programs must prepare teachers capable of integrating technology in meaningful and appropriate ways. This research focuses on the integration of software into educational psychology courses to facilitate graphical representation of complex relationships in learning theory. The purpose was to determine the extent to which performance on causal influence diagramming activities influenced performance on traditional assessment while engaging teacher candidates with a software that facilitates representation of knowledge in a non-traditional way. Teacher candidates demonstrated their understanding of complex learning domains through causal influence diagramming, and performance on diagrams was compared to performance on multiple-choice test questions. Results indicate that performance on test items was higher on questions associated with the causal influence diagramming activities than on questions about learning theories not addressed in CID activities.